1. Field
The present disclosure relates generally to aircraft and, in particular, to display devices in aircraft. Still more particularly, the present disclosure relates to a method and apparatus for testing display devices in an aircraft.
2. Background
In aircraft, information used by pilots to operate the aircraft is received from flight instruments in the cockpit of the aircraft. These flight instruments provide information, such as, for example, height, speed, altitude, and/or other suitable information about the aircraft. These flight instruments are particularly useful when poor visibility is present.
Flight instruments may include, for example, an altimeter, an attitude indicator, an airspeed indicator, a magnetic compass, a heading indicator, a turn indicator, a vertical speed indicator, and/or other suitable types of indicators. Traditionally, these types of instruments are analog and physical instruments connected to the various sensors to provide the information to the pilot.
Increasingly, these flight instruments are represented using graphical user interfaces displayed on a display system in which the graphical user interfaces are generated by a computer system. The computer system generates video data to display the information to the operators of aircraft. These graphical user interfaces may simulate a representation of physical gauges.
For example, an airspeed indicator in the form of a circular instrument having a pointer that rotates about an axis to point to airspeed markings on the instrument may be represented in a graphical form. The same circular instrument may be displayed on a graphical user interface with a pointer that rotates to point to airspeed markings displayed on a graphical user interface to indicate the airspeed. In this manner, the graphical user interface provides familiar indications of airspeed to an operator of the aircraft. In other cases, this information may be represented in other ways, such as with a number displayed on the display device, a bar graph, and/or some other suitable type of graphical indicator.
These types of display systems provide flexibility in presenting information to an operator of an aircraft. For example, with these types of displays, different instruments may be displayed, depending on the phase of flight or based on selections by the operator. Also, the same display devices may be used in different types of aircraft with different user interfaces being generated for the specific type of aircraft on which the display devices are used. Additionally, the use of a computer system to process sensor information may provide a more accurate display of information to the operator.
With these types of display systems, however, situations may occur in which an operator of an aircraft may lose confidence in the accuracy of the information being displayed. For example, if a parameter being displayed becomes distorted temporarily, is missing intermittently, or if the display device blinks on and off, the operator may lose confidence in the accuracy of the information being displayed on the display system.
Therefore, it would be advantageous to have a method and apparatus that takes into account at least some of the issues discussed above, as well as possibly other issues.